Astronomers have spotted orbiting around a young star a newborn planet that took only 3 million years to form — quite swift in cosmic terms — in a discovery that challenges the current understanding of the speed of planetary formation.
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“This discovery confirms that planets can be in a cohesive form within 3 million years, which was previously unclear as Earth took 10 to 20 million years to form,” said Madyson Barber, a graduate student in the department of physics and astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and lead author of the study published this week in the journal Nature.